


Episode Two

by octoaliencowboy



Series: Bat Family Comedy AU [2]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Cass And Steph Are Stupid, Fluff, Gen, Humour, bruce is an alright dad sometimes, direct continuation from the first part so i recommend reading that first, dont ask me how i know so much about paw patrol, family bonding time, family comedy au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 21:04:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19709413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octoaliencowboy/pseuds/octoaliencowboy
Summary: Direct continuation from Episode 1, so you should probably read that first even though it isn't that big a deal. Bruce makes it up to Jason, Duke is immune to propaganda, and Cass and Steph aren't known for their wisdom. What happens next will shock you (or maybe it wont)





	Episode Two

_ > staying over at Donnas with her and Roy tonight _

_ > I’ll be back noon tonoroe _

_ > *tomorrow  _

_ Jason wants your help with his science project. < _

_ > Aw why doesn’t he just ask you? _

_ Apparently I’m too busy. < _

_ > :/ git gud then _

Bruce frowned down at his phone, reading once more Dick’s texts. He didn’t like how flippant Dick had gotten lately. ‘Git gud then’, whatever that meant, didn’t exactly strike Bruce as polite, but there wasn’t much Bruce could do about it right now. He could order Dick to come home now, but the chances that Dick just wouldn’t listen to him and stay out anyway were high. They’d been fighting a lot more often than Bruce cared for, lately. 

He let it slide, instead going to see what his other kids were up to. 

Talia has gotten back from picking up Tim, Cass and Duke a while ago, and Selina has gone home shortly after that. Talia was most certainly still in the manor somewhere, and would be until tomorrow, and Bruce hoped not to run into her by accident. It seemed like every time they ever interacted ended in a fight. That was part of the reason they separated in the first place— the fights just got to be too much for the kids. 

He found Duke, his second youngest, sitting alone in the upstairs living room and watching paw patrol on the giant tv. Bruce sat on the couch beside him, barely getting a reaction out of the six year old, as absorbed in his show was he. 

Bruce didn’t really understand paw patrol, but that was fine. He was far from the target audience. And it seemed like an alright kids show, anyway, even if sometimes the plot didn’t make much sense. 

“Which dog is your favourite, Duke?” 

“Marshall.” Duke said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “The firefighter dog. I don’t like Chase the police dog. He does too much.” 

Bruce watched as the police dog on screen ‘tracked’ a ‘scent trail’ that was really a trail of what looked like crumbs the size of marbles that any dog, or human, could have seen with their eyes. 

Doing too much, indeed. 

Duke, at this point, was only Bruce’s foster child, but he’d been starting to get the paperwork together recently to have him formally adopted. just to have them ready. Just in case. The little boy had only been in their lives for six months, now, but Bruce was already attached like he’d raised Duke from birth. 

It was then that a third person walked into the room. Bruce could hear their footsteps as they approached, leaning on the back of the couch. 

“Watching the puppy copaganda again, I see.” Drawled Jason. Bruce sighed. 

“What’s copaganda?” Duke asked, this time turning away from the tv to look at Jason. 

“It’s stuff that tries to trick you into liking the police.” 

“Oh.” Duke looked back at the tv. “I don’t like the police, though. So it’s okay. It can’t trick me.”

Jason laughed, patting the first grader’s head. “Good lad,” He said in a near perfect Alfred imitation. Then he turned to look sardonically at Bruce. “Wow, pops,” He said. “Looks like you’re just  _ rolling _ in free time.” 

Bruce fought down a wince. “Why don’t you sit with us, Jaylad?” 

Jason looked hesitant. Clearly he was still upset with him. 

“You don’t even have to watch the copaganda.” Bruce pushed. “Just— sit with us. And I promise I’ll help you with your project after dinner.” 

“How do I know it’s a real promise and not fake promise?” 

Bruce considered this for a moment. Then he held his hand out in a loose fist, extending his pinky finger. “Pinky promise.” 

Jason laughed. “Alright, old man.” He hooked his pinky around Bruce’s, sealing the deal. “If I tell Dick you broke a  _ pinky  _ promise he’ll annihilate you, so I’ve got insurance on this. Just letting you know.” He vaulted over the back of the couch, landed with a slight bounce right in between Duke and Bruce. Immediately, Bruce reached around and pulled Jason into his side with a one-armed hug. Jason made a gagging noise at the show of affection, but didn’t actually make an attempt to get away. Duke saw an opportunity and took it, snuggling into Jason’s other side. 

Now stuck in the middle of a cuddle sandwich, Jason grumbled and fished his phone out of his hoodie pocket. As soon as his nose was buried in the screen and he stopped paying attention to them, Bruce grabbed his own phone and took a picture of the three of them together. 

They finished the episode of paw patrol, which wasn’t very long, and then let another two play automatically before Duke asked him if he could switch it to something else. Bruce took the remote and went back to Netflix kids, scrolling through the various shows available, until something in the corner of the screen caught his eye. 

“Mr. Rogers’ neighbourhood is on Netflix?” He said, clicking on it. Jason looked up from his phone. “Duke, do you know who Mr. Rogers is?” 

Duke shook his head no. 

“Well, you’re going to find out.” Bruce put on the first episode, quickly adding the show to their list as he went. A wave of nostalgia washed over him as it started to play. “I used to watch this show when I was a kid, you know.” 

Duke was already completely absorbed, but Jason took the opportunity to snort at his dad. “God, you’re old.” 

Bruce poked him in the side. “Hey, I’m only thirty five.” 

“Yeah, like I said. Hella old.” 

“Shh!” Duke shushed them, and Jason and Bruce quickly shut up. Bruce was glad to see, in his peripheral vision, Jason put his phone away and focus on the show instead. 

This was nice, Bruce thought. It was moments like these, quiet moments he spent with his kids where everything was alright, that made Bruce really glad he became a father. Even when there were struggles, it was always worth it. 

He extended his reach to wrap his hand around Duke, too, pulling his boys closer to him. 

They watched Mr. Rogers’ neighbourhood until it was time for dinner.

  
  
  


Bruce stopped in the kitchen to tell Alfred to set one less place for dinner, because Dick wouldn’t be joining them. Alfred just cast him a look like he was utterly stupid. 

“I’ll have you know, master Bruce,” he said, “That I have never improperly set the table in my life. Master Dick called me earlier to let me know, and since miss Stephanie will be joining us tonight, she will have his seat instead.”

Bruce looked in surprise through the doorway into the dining room. Stephanie Brown was, in fact, there, laughing with Cass while the kids got settled into their seats. 

Stephanie Brown was Cass’ best friend from school. They had had good luck to be in the same class every year since they met, and they were first and foremost inseparable. Where Cass went Steph went, and where Steph went Cass went. It was not uncommon to find the girls hanging out together in the manor, though they seemed to rarely hold playdates at Stephanie’s house. Bruce didn’t mind terribly, this. It wasn’t af if they didn’t have room to host any number of his children’s friends, and Bruce was rather protective of his only daughter anyway. He liked to know where she was. 

Even though Bruce sometimes thought Stephanie wasn’t a very good influence on Cass, he’d rather she have a good, caring friend who got into trouble sometimes than no friends at all (He’d seen another girl around from time to time, with blue hair named Harper, but it was much more infrequent and she and Cass didn’t seem to share the same bond Cass and Steph had). 

“I didn’t know Stephanie was coming over today.” 

“It was a rather impromptu visit,” Alfred sniffed. “Now, master Bruce, make yourself useful and help me carry the dishes in.” 

The order of seating went like this: Bruce sat at the head of the table, on the end of the long oak table closest to the kitchen. On his right usually sat Dick, but right now the chair was occupied by Stephanie. Next to Steph sat Cass, although she had claimed the space that was normally filled by Damian’s high chair. The high chair, and therefore the baby in question, had been moved down a spot, and on the other side of it sat Talia. 

On Bruce’s left sat Jason, perfectly positioned so that on almost any given night he and his older brother could bicker and fling bits of food at each other, until eventually a piece landed on Bruce and they both got grounded. Next to Jason sat Tim, who was in Cass’ usual seat (Cass and Jason bickered even more than Jason and Dick did-- sometimes Bruce wondered if this seating arrangement was very wise). There was a large teddy bear in the place where Tim normally was, who was set up with his own empty set of plastic tableware, and next to the teddy bear was little Duke, one of the few children who was actually sitting where he was supposed to and therefore not disrupting the natural order of things. 

Duke was rapidly becoming Bruce’s favourite child. 

Not that Bruce would ever pick favourites, of course. 

“So, Stephanie,” Bruce said in between mouthfuls of beef stroganoff. “How are you enjoying seventh grade so far?”

Steph shrugged in response. “I mean, we haven’t really done much yet. But it’s alright.” 

“Will you be needing a new uniform this year, Stephanie?” Talia asked. “I’ll be happy to buy one for you again.” 

“Nope, I’m good, thanks Talia.” Steph said with her mouth full of rice. “Maybe next year, though.” 

Talia was feeding Damian his dinner in little spoonfuls, cooing at him that he was doing such a good job. It made Bruce miss the days they were married, almost. It made him sad to think, if only everything hadn’t gone to shit, they could have had this. 

But he shouldn’t be thinking about that. He was with Selina, and he was happy with Selina. There was no point in reminiscing about what he had with a woman he would never have again. 

  
  
  
  


“Hold it  _ steady _ , dad!” 

Jason and Bruce were in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on Jason’s science project. Jason was really going in for that A+, and had decided to fill his model cell with clear gelatin, which he said would act as the cytoplasm-- it all sounded like jargon to Bruce. Bruce was tasked with holding the orange foam form still and keeping it from wobbling away as Jason carefully poured the gelatin in around the other pieces of his project. 

All the little bits of plasticine and licorice (taken from Dick’s stash, which Bruce planned to keep quiet about-- he knew better than to start drama between his two eldest sons) were held in place by wire jutting up from the bottom of the form and hot glue, labels raised above them like little flags as the foam slowly filled with the clear substance. 

Once it was filled up they carefully placed the project in the fridge to solidify, which would take a good few hours. 

“Not bad, for an old man.” 

Bruce smiled down at his son. “What do you want to do now, Jaylad?” 

“Uh…” Jason grimaced suddenly. “I’m actually gonna join mom and the other kids for a movie night in a bit. I don’t think you’re invited.” 

Bruce pulled a face. “I see.” 

  
  
  


Meanwhile, upstairs in one of the many, many bedrooms within the manor, Steph and Cass were sitting on Cass’ bed, up to no good, as usual. 

Well, that wasn’t quite true. At this time, they were not  _ intending  _ to be up to no good, but it seemed that was what was happening anyway. 

See, Steph had brought nail polish to the manor with her, intending to paint Cass’ nails. Cass has never had her nails painted before, and the concept didn’t really interest her very much, but Steph insisted there was nothing as great as having sparkly purple nails, so she went along with it. 

The family’s shared laptop sat on the duvet in front of them, playing old episodes of wizards of waverly place. Spread out alongside and in front of the laptop were bottles of shiny nail polish and nail polish remover. The one open bottle, which contained a shiny, metallic black polish, was perched precariously on Steph’s jeaned knee (her jnee, if you will). She was carefully applying even layers of polish onto Cass’s short fingernails, tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth in concentration. 

Cass, privately, was losing her mind. 

Steph was gently, carefully, dare-I-say  _ tenderly _ holding Cass’ outstretched fingers in one hand, he other applying polish to her nails that ass wasn’t even paying attention to. Steph could probably do just about anything to her nails at that point, and Cass wouldn’t notice, because she was too busy having all her focus zeroed in on all the points of contact between their fingers. It was like she suddenly had tunnel vision-- all her senses were tunneled, actually. 

Her fingertips tingled. They burned. This was the longest she and Steph had ever maintained physical contact for, and Cass didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know why her instincts were telling her she had to do something about it. 

They were  _ holding hands _ . 

Which was, of course, a perfectly normal thing to happen between girls who were best friends, and did not necessarily have to have any other connotations. 

For some reason, the thought of her and Steph being normal girls who were normal best friends made her upset, but there was no way in hell she could put those feelings into words. Words were hard, and feelings were hard, so putting the two together was completely out of the question. 

Besides, there was no way Cass could put any cognitive energy to thinking such complicated things when all of her being was revolving around the sensation of her skin and her best friend’s skin touching.

Luckily, Cass was very good at internalizing her crises, because for some reason she felt like if Steph noticed this one, it would be like some kind of betrayal, 

Luckily and also luckily for her, Cass was very soon distracted.

“Oops.” Steph’s hand slipped, and a streak of polish got on Cass’s finger. “Hold, lemme just…” Steph opened up the large bottle of nail polish remover, grabbing a couple of q-tips and dipping it in. (Cass took a moment to breath when the skin-on-skin contact was broken.)

She set the nail polish remover back down on the bed, watching it for a second to make sure it wouldn’t spill. When she was confident it was staying upright she leaned in to carefully wipe off the stray polish. 

But when she shifted her weight the mattress moved, and the opened bottle of nail polish remover tipped over…

...and spilled all its contents all over the laptop. 

“Oh my god!” Steph gasped. She grabbed the bottle, but it was too late. Nearly the entire bottle had emptied onto, and into, the computer. The bottle of nail polish on her knee fell and spilled a small amount of polish onto the duvet, but neither girl noticed for it was the last of their worries.

Steph and Cass watched in horror as the screen started to glitch and ultimately turn black. The keys started to look gooey. It took the beginnings of whole dissolution to get them to snap out of it. 

Cass grabbed the laptop and held it upside down, trying to shake out the acetone, but it didn’t do much. The keys continued to eat themselves. Cass dropped it back down on the bed, turning back to Steph and signing frantically, “What do we do?”

“I don’t know!” Steph hissed. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. It was an accident.” 

They stared at the ruined laptop for another moment longer. 

“We have to get rid of the evidence.” 

Cass nodded in agreement. 

“What if…” Steph frowned for a minute. “Okay, I think I have a plan. You steal your dad’s credit card and we’ll order a new laptop exactly like this one… fast shipping so it comes tomorrow, and we’ll get rid of this one — I’ll sneak it out in my backpack and drop it in a dumpster by my house. No one will ever know.”

Cass nodded again as if this was actually in any way a good idea. She leapt off the bed and dashed out the door, heading for Bruce’s office where she knew he kept spare credit cards. Steph grabbed a box of tissues and started wrapping the laptop up like a mummy. 

“Rest in peace, laptop…” She whispered tenderly as she shoved the damp mess of tissues and plastic unceremoniously into her backpack, behind her change of clothes for tomorrow. The door opened behind her, and she jumped, ready to hide their terrible crime and try to cover up with an excuse to whoever was at the door with a lie so terrible and unnecessary that it would completely give away what happened because Steph was a horrible liar when nervous. It was just Cass, though, black card in hand, and Steph gave a sigh of relief.

“Okay, let’s do this.”

There were multiple and many instances where it would have occurred to anyone else that what they were doing was a terrible idea. It should have occurred to them from the very start, as soon as the idea left Steph’s lips. But unfortunately for them and everyone in their general vicinity, Cass and Steph were known for flawlessly executed terrible ideas. Usually, with Jason or Tim as the victim.

Stealing one of her dad’s emergency credit cards was easy. Ordering a new, physically identical laptop from Cass’ phone was easy. Explaining the charge to Bruce, and why the family laptop was suddenly blank and factory-new was going to be a lot harder, but they hadn’t thought of that, yet. 

“So, what now?” Cass put her phone down to sign with both hands. 

Steph shrugged. “I haven’t finished painting your nails, yet.”

Cass gulped, looking down at her half-painted nails. She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s my style, anyway.” Nevermind that she wasn’t sure she could survive a second round of… holding hands with Steph, practically. 

Steph didn’t fight her on it. 


End file.
